


remember me (for you know how i cherished you)

by somber



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, M/M, a bit inspired by sappho bc i love her ;_____;;, all of mx is in this au but those are the only ones mentioned by name, rated t for some VERY light innuendo and one (1) curse word, this seems angsty but its like.. not at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 13:56:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20875346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somber/pseuds/somber
Summary: Flowers do not grow in saltwater, he wants to say, but holds himself back.To Hoseok, Changkyun is so much more than just a god.





	remember me (for you know how i cherished you)

The beginning of the end occurs quicker than Hoseok had ever thought it could, in a place Hoseok was too familiar with, the gardens in his domain and their beautiful fruits sparkling, watching as one of their own slips away, towards the light. Towards the light where Hoseok had stolen him from, his black hair shining brown in the sun. But there is no sun here, and his hair has not shone in a decade—his eyes had slowly begun to dull as well. But beautiful he still was, the sweet downturn of his nose, the gentle way that he’d turn towards Hoseok, curiously blinking up at him through lashes long enough to thread through a needle.

“Hades, Hoseok, hyung—” Changkyun simpers, staring at the hand currently wrapped around his wrist, grip controlled but not tight, gentle in its touch even when he tugs against it. “I need to go. I need to go, my family, they, my mother—she needs me. I’m sorry.”

Hoseok is not heartless.

He knows—he knows how the boy yearns, how he longs for his family, staring through the window that Hoseok had built for him for hours on end, watching as his mother tended to the trees, to the flowers, to the warm, warm harvest. How she tended to the humans that she’d taken a liking to, even as she slowly faded away, merely a wisp of her former self.

The world was colder, without her.

Hoseok knows this as well. He sees it on the dead that join him, he sees it in their gaunt flesh, in their frigid stares that bear no resemblance of the humanity he’d long since abandoned himself.

This is what Hoseok wishes to say: Demeter will be reborn. The world will restore its balance. Someday, we will all disappear.

Hoseok’s mother had died when he was still human, no, rather, had been killed. Hoseok’s mother was the sacrifice that had served as his awakening, and he could recall little of her, other than a hint of jasmine and ocean spray.

Gods do not form attachments to the human world nowadays. It served them little purpose, although idiots like Minhyuk still chose to do so. Gods do not have human family—they outlive them by hundreds of years, and although they have expirations as well, the lifetime of a god triumphs over that of a human by centuries. This held true for most gods.

Changkyun, however, is a special case.

He is a god borne of a goddess, he knows family. He knows family as the humans do, closely and dearly and warm to the touch.

Demeter will be reborn, yes—but not as _her_. Not as Im Sooyoung, not as the woman with Changkyun’s eyes and lips, not as the woman that had held his hand and led him through fields of wheat and grain, not as the woman who lifted him upon her shoulders and allowed him to taste the wind as it blew past them, ruffling the leaves and the life that she had formed.

Demeter will be reborn, but not as his mother.

Changkyun is young. Hoseok does not tell him this.

Instead, he sighs. He caresses the back of the smaller hand clutched in his, down his long, elegant fingers. “My love, do not apologize.” Tilting his head in what he hopes is a kindly manner, his thumb slides over Changkyun’s knuckles, over the delicate flowers embedded in his skin in ink, twirling in-between his fingers. “Go, but remember me,” his other hand comes up to rest against the curve of his lover’s face, thumb swiping over his cheekbones, over the wetness there. “For you know how I cherished you.”

(_Flowers do not grow in saltwate_r, he wants to say, but holds himself back.)

“I love you,” is what he receives as an answer. “I’ll be back.”

Hoseok smiles, gentle with everything but his own heart, looking to only to forgive. “You know you cannot.”

“I will.” Changkyun covers the hand on his face with his own, pressing a kiss firmly into the center of Hoseok’s hand. “I _will_.”

Hoseok blinks his tears back, shaking his head quietly. He doesn’t want to cry. He doesn’t want this to be the him that Changkyun knows. He doesn’t want Changkyun to acquaint himself with the versions of Hoseok—Hades, that had existed before him. Their cruelty, their carelessness. He’d managed to keep the boy sheltered until this point, but that was no longer possible.

He hates the thought of it.

“Go, unto the world that you will become. I will love you, until the very last breath I take.”

“You’re so dramatic,” Changkyun sniffles. “This isn’t the end, hyung. I know it won’t be easy but I’ll— I’ll find a way.”

He pretends to indulge the thought, pressing his lips in a smile he knows is not genuine. “Be safe, Im Changkyun, lovely Persephone. And please,” Hoseok removes his hand from Changkyun’s grasp, only to reach out and ruffle Changkyun’s hair. “Tell _Eomeonim_ that I send my love.”

“I will,” Changkyun replies, voice low and quiet. He stares up at Hoseok, contemplating for a bit before he surges forward, hands coming to rest on the sides of his face as he presses his warm lips against Hoseok’s. “I love you,” he murmurs in-between kisses, as if to make up for what would come next. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Hoseok barely manages to kiss back, to say the words back, to respond in any way, before pomegranate bursts into his mouth, bitter and tart. He grabs hopelessly at a body that is no longer there.

The boy is gone, replaced by little more than a daffodil and the bitter taste of arsenic in his mouth.

* * *

He plants the daffodil, of course.

It sits under the light of the window Hoseok had built for his love, a viewpoint into the overworld, sunlight streaming through it sometimes, and Hoseok can only think of how Changkyun would sit there, lovely in his existence, staring through the magical panes of glass at a world half as beauteous as him.

He finds himself wishing that plants had souls. He finds himself tending for his gardens as his love used to, standing outside in little except for his undergarments, using the little water that he had access to in order to water his flower, and his fruits.

They don’t flourish, as they did under Changkyun’s care.

But they live, and that is more than Hoseok can say about the rest of his world.

It happens, one day, that Hoseok awakens with the knowledge that a decade is all Demeter has left. It hurts. The knowledge hurts him so badly that he stares into the mirror that Changkyun had insisted he’d make about a century earlier, trying to find a wound, any wound that could cause him this much pain. There isn’t one. Hoseok watches the way he stands in the mirror, flinching as empty, cold eyes stare back at him.

And it suddenly occurs to him—he needs to run.

It starts simple, with sprinting across his domain just to stop in his tracks when he stands at the gate of the hell-hounds that his predecessors had fashioned out of spiteful souls.

Hoseok does not like them.

Hoseok does not like them, but half a decade later, he finds it in himself to admit that they did make excellent running companions. They’re no more dog than he is human— but something inside of him refuses to acknowledge this as he scratches the tummy of one after they finish their daily jog, its tongue lolling out of it’s mouth with a breath so foul that it could kill the living and revive the dead. Since Hoseok is neither, he can’t bring himself to mind all that much.

He keeps busy.

He talks with the souls, which he’d avoided doing previously. Although Changkyun was shy, he was the one who would allow himself to be approached by the kinder souls, engaging them in conversations about T.V shows that Hoseok has never and will never watch—it wasn’t his era. Somewhere along the way, he meets the soul of a gardener.

His name is Hyungwon, and it takes Hoseok another half of a decade to invite him anywhere near his—Changkyun’s gardens. Hyungwon, of course, doesn’t mind. He doesn’t seem to mind many things, which is why Hoseok likes him so much. But most of all, he doesn’t ask many questions.

He listens more than he speaks, so different from Hoseok that he’s almost immediately reminded of his quiet lover. But Hyungwon isn’t Changkyun, is nothing like Changkyun, and Hoseok almost wants to throttle himself every time his brain brings the younger boy up—because it _hurts_.

It hurts, and Hyungwon listens to him say as much, nodding in acquiescence every once in a while. He tends to Changkyun’s flower and it flourishes under his careful hand.

It hurts, but at least he knows Changkyun is happy. Demeter’s life force may be close to ending, but he was able to spend her last decade with her, at least. Changkyun is happy, his love is happy, _Changkyun is happy_, he reminds himself. He waters the bright, beautiful flower.

On the day that Demeter dies, the daffodil wilts.

He cries.

Hoseok doesn’t cry often, especially not as much as he’d used to, back when he was a human and even the gentle passage of time rocked his boat enough to throw him overboard. But he sits on the cold ground in front of the delicate flower and weeps, and doesn’t stop even when Hyungwon comes by and sits next to him in silence.

Demeter is reborn a few months later, and Hoseok feels the shift in his bones when it happens. He wonders if Changkyun knows. He wonders if Changkyun’s trying to find her, searching for her in whatever life she may lead now.

* * *

“There’s no such thing as a beginning and an end.” Hyungwon says to him one day as they tend to his gardens, the daffodil still slightly wilted in the center of it all, sparkling under the gorgeous warm light streaming from the outlook.

“We are nothing but serpents, swallowing our own tails.” Hoseok agrees.

“I think I’m in love.”

A strange response, _especially_ since Hoseok had thought that souls lost their capacity to love in death. “With whom?”

“Not _with_,” Hyungwon corrects. “_In_. He doesn’t feel the same way.”

And Hoseok cannot quite imagine that. Because he and his beloved…well, they had always been fated, hadn’t they? It wasn’t pure luck that made Hoseok fall for the boy at first sight, that’s for sure.

“The boy that steers the boat on the river… do you know his name?”

Hoseok furrows his brow. “On the Styx?” At Hyungwon’s obvious nod, he continues. “You mean Jooheon? You’re in love with _Jooheon?_”

It only takes a few months for them to start dating once Hoseok introduces them officially, the shy demi-god that Hoseok had hired smiling at Hyungwon with his sweet dimples, shyly ducking his head as Hoseok ruffled his hair, and it had seemed they were already quite smitten. He’s happy for them, he really is, but something inside him feels empty at the interaction.

It just—wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t he be happy? He knew Changkyun could never return, would never return. He just—wanted him to be happy, desperately with all of his being, he wanted Changkyun to be happy. So why did he lay awake at night, wishing he’d given into his deepest temptations to just _keep_ him there. By force or not, it’d be better if his sweet boy were there. It’s disgusting truly, corrupt as could be. It was the reason Demeter had refused him any access at all to the boy for decades, before finally accepting that he was different than his other iterations. But, truly, was he? Was he not just as much of a monster for the thoughts he had?

And of course, although Demeter and him had sheltered their Persephone from all that they could, including the horror stories that Hades had caused, Changkyun was in the overworld now, and perhaps the stories would scare him so much that he’d be relieved to be gone—out of Hoseok’s reach, out of his evil grasp.

It is after one of those sleepless nights spent alone with his alienating thoughts that Hyungwon comes bursting into his bedroom without even knocking.

“Hoseok,” He pants, and that’s the first sign that something is severely wrong. Hyungwon _never_ runs, if he can help it. “It’s—It’s gone.”

Hoseok stares at him groggily.

“The-the flower. Your flower, it’s gone.”

The statement hits him like a stake through his heart. “What do you mean?” Hoseok replies, all thoughts of sleep gone from his mind. “What do you mean, _gone?!”_

“It’s not there—I-I went to go check on the new apples and I happened to stop by the window and—Nothing. There’s nothing there.”

He’s out of bed before he knows it, sprinting towards the gardens as fast as his now strong legs could take him, completely leaving Hyungwon behind. He reaches the gardens in little to no time, pushing past groves of apple and pomegranate and orange trees, all flourishing beyond belief. It seems like they’d grown quite a bit overnight, but Hoseok ignores this in favour of skidding to a halt in front of the little plot of land right beneath the window of light.

True to Hyungwon’s word, there was nothing there.

“_No_,” Hoseok says, dumbfounded. His knees almost automatically drop to the moist soil, his hands digging through the dirt as gently as possible, shaking uncontrollably. “No, no, nono, no, _please_, no—”

And there, under a layer of dirt, was a small sprout of something yellow.

He almost sobs in relief, softly unearthing the tiny bit of life. A tear slips down his cheek, landing on the bud of the flower he held, cradled delicately in his large hands. It was okay. His daffodil was okay—_Changkyun was okay_.

As if reacting to his tears, the small flower begins to grow, slowly reaching toward his face, its blooms brushing up against his cheek.

“I love you,” He responds to it, tears of relief and happiness still flowing down his face. “I love you so much,” he hiccups.

“Should I be preparing to fight her for your love, Hades?”

The voice comes from a few feet behind him, and when Hoseok whips his head around to see the source of the voice, the voice so familiar to him that it settles into every cold cleft of his body and warms him in a way he hasn’t felt in decades, in centuries, in _millennia_, Changkyun smiles at him, a dimpled, soft little tug of his lips.

Ethereal.

“This isn’t real,” Hoseok breathes, his heart increasing it’s rhythm trifold.

Changkyun’s dimples grow deeper at this as he huffs out a wispy laugh.

It’s enough for Hoseok to drop the flower and surge towards him, hands, dirt streaked, grabbing either side of Changkyun’s face in pure joy. “My love! My love, my everything,” Changkyun laughs, a joyful chime of sound as Hoseok dirties his face with soil and kisses pressed to every inch of skin that he could cover. “You’re okay! You’re…okay, you’re okay, you’re back and you—you…”

His lover leans forwards, rubbing his nose gently against Hoseok’s as Hoseok falls into another teary eyed haze.

“And I love you.” Changkyun finishes for him.

“I love you,” Hoseok replies almost immediately, hands coming up to wipe his tears—but they’re still dirty so Changkyun wipes them for him, slender fingers tracing the curves of his cheeks. “I thought—I’d never see you again, I—”

Changkyun tsks derisively. “I told you I would. I promised, didn’t I?”

Nodding, Hoseok laughs through his tears, making an odd half-sob half-chuckle.

“Eomma says she loves you too, by the way. She missed you.”

He smiles at that, sniffling. “Was she…was she happy?”

A tentative nod, as Changkyun takes Hoseok’s dirty hand in his own, gently running his thumbs over his knuckles. “She told me to tell you to stop being so dramatic. I—I know, you know? About everything. I know all of your iterations and all of mine.”

“Oh.” Hoseok sucks in air through his teeth. “I’m sorry—”

“There’s no need to be sorry, hyung. You’re not any of them. You’re you, and only you.”

He frowns. “But—”

“No buts,” Changkyun interrupts. “I love you because you’re _you_, not because you’re Hades. I won’t leave you just because some other version of you was a fuckhead. I promised to come back.”

“Wait, how _did_ you even— I mean, that’s not allowed.” Hoseok muses. “You were only able to use the fruit once.”

“Oh, that?” Changkyun shrugged. “I asked Zeus for help. Or well, his names Shownu, this time. He’s a real sucker for love, that one.”

“_Z-Zeus_?!” Hoseok hadn’t met either of his brothers, for as long as he’d been alive. He’d had a feeling that they’d be just as cruel as his predecessors were.

“Oh, and we’re invited over for dinner sometime next week, as repayment for helping me return to you. He thinks you’re a woman this time, though, and I didn’t want to correct him because the last Hera was a little…uhh, y’know. Republican.”

Hoseok groans. “I’m no woman, Changkyun.”

“Oh, I’m aware.” The boy grins at him, devilish. “_Very _aware.”

“My love, you are insatiable even during the most innocent of moments.” He jokes, poking Changkyun’s side in order to make him squirm. It doesn’t quite work, but he gets a smile for his efforts anyway.

“I’m just saying, _hyung_, that there are a few other things we could be doing to _celebrate_ my return, other than laying in the dirt, fully clothed.”

“And those are?”

“Stripping, so we can lay here naked.”

Hoseok snorts. “I like the way you think, lovely Changkyun.”

“Well, I like _you_, dear Hoseok-hyung.”

And before Hoseok can even think to reply, there are warm lips pressing against his, filling him up with honey and ether, his skin blooming into red carnations under the other’s touch.

He’s finally, _finally home_.

**Author's Note:**

> oof yall i havent written in SO long im so rusty...... posting this to my side account so i wont be embarrassed when it flops LOL
> 
> but i hope you got some kind of enjoyment from this dear reader!! the wonkyun tags been pretty dead so ive been sad about it ;___;; heres my [cc](https://curiouscat.me/glumios) if u wanna talk abt wonkyun!! or just mx in general!


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